5 Power Driven Elements To Focus On To Generate Email Subscribers

Doesn’t it drive you mad when you put out great content, but yet you don’t generate email subscribers?

You put in hours of work in crafting great posts where you incorporate infographs, videos, related links, etc.. and it seems like none of this even suffice. You probably want to just throw your lap top or desktop out of the window! But as you know, this isn’t going to help you any 😉

So what do you think you’re missing out of all this? Well the solutions may be easier than what you think! You may be either overlooking them or you put them off on a later date. Sounds familiar?

In this post I will give you 5 elements to focus on so that you can instantly implement them!

“Just because something’s legible doesn’t mean it communicates. More importantly, it doesn’t mean it communicates the right thing. So, what is the message sent before somebody actually gets into the material? And I think that’s sometimes an overlooked area.” ~ David Carson

Sometimes our daily habits can be defeating.

In a couple of post I pointed out a saying a friend of mine told me which goes something like “The hardest working people are the laziest.”

This is not to offend anyone but to get you to realize that if you’ve been doing the same routine, but have yet to see any improvements, then it’s time to think outside the box.

Especially if you’re leveraging your blog to make money online.

And in order to make money online, you need people. But not just anybody, you need the people that’s already interested in what you promote.

In order to make money online, you want to use your blog, directing it’s focus to the interest of these people that’s already interested in what you promote in order to build rapport with them.

Why? You want them to get to know, like and trust you. This is definitely cliche, but saying these three things will always be relative. It’ll never get old any time soon.

One of the best ways to build this type of relationship is for them to subscribe to your blog so you can build rapport not only through your blog, but also through email.

The problem with most of us is that we find it very challenging to generate email subscribers.

Although I’m writing about this topic, even I have this issue. At least within the past couple of months.

But, although we all been working hard, we do have to make some changes as far as our habitual routine. We have to think outside the box which I have been doing more so.

Yes we do want to put out quality content, but at the same time, why just put out quality content if you’re not getting any returns from it?

So as far as goals, you’re probably putting out some of your best work. The next goal is to figure out how you can increase email subscriptions.

To generate email subscribers, there are a number of factors that ties into it. Lets look at 7 of them

The Influential Factors To Generate Email Subscribers

The main goal is to attract a specific market that already have an interest in what you promote. When you’re able to do this, the chance to generate email subscribers goes up. Here are 7 factors that you may want to consider to make this more possible:

How Interesting Are Your Topics?

When it comes to your topics for your blog, you want to make sure that they are in line with the interest of your target market. There are a few ways to do this.

Check Google Analytics to see what Landing Pages are getting the most traffic. The landing pages are each post that get the most traffic. For this you go to Behavior > Site Content > Landing Pages

Check your Bounce Rate in Google Analytics (Bounce rate measures the actions your visitors take before they leave your site) the average for blogs are between 40% and 60%

Check Average Session Time which shows the average time your visitors are on your site. The longer the better!

Check which posts/pages get the most comments

Check the sessions which are a combination of your New Visitors and Return Visitors

Does Any Of Your Blog Post Solve Any Of Your Target Audiences Problems?

Probably the biggest reason why your visitors come to your blog or website is to find solutions to problems that’s been irking them for some time. If you’re not giving answers, or directing your visitors to another site for answers, then more than likely your traffic will be low.

Your visitors are also trying to keep a great, trustworthy reputation as well.

And to grow and keep this level of reputation, they want to share blog posts thats of valuable quality.

So whenever you write blog posts, put yourself in the shoes of others and ask yourself these questions:

Does this topic quench your own interest?

Is it so generic that you can’t take anything from it?

How would your audience look at you if you were sharing a blog post with them?

Will the blog post help build your reputation as someone who shares helpful tips?

Are You Engaging Your Audience Within The Content?

Do you ever include your audience within your content by asking questions?

Do you write in conversational style?

Do you use everyday occurrences as analogies to make a point?

How often do you ask the opinion of your audience?

Do you use such techniques like NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) to help you build rapport with your audience?

How often do you include engaging copywriting practices within your content?

Are you using different types of content (slide share, videos, infographs, etc) that is curtailed towards how your audience respond and learn from your content?

What Is Your Percentage Of Return Visitors?

When it comes to seeing how interesting your content is to your visitors, you want to see how many of them keep coming back.

There’s quite a few ways of doing this:

You can use Analytic Tools like Google Analytics to check the metric of Return Visitors

You can see how consistent the same people comment on your blog posts

You can use sites like mention.com to see who has mentioned your name and shared your posts

How Much Social Proof Do You Have?

The one thing that influence the decision of your target audience to even consider reading your site and possibly subscribing to your blog is by how many shares and comments you’re getting on your blog.

And if you’re popular on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, that’s more of an indicator of whether your audience will engage and subscribe

So on that token, make sure that you’re networking with other bloggers who are of the same niche or have similar interests as you do. Just by doing simple Collaboration of commenting and sharing each other’s post can mean a lot!

Are You Seen Everywhere Engaging Others?

Being sociable is attractive.

If you want to generate email subscribers, then a great indicator of this is how your target audience sees you as someone that people know, like and trust.

Although you may not see or notice your audience, they are watching your moves. If your audience sees that you have friends in common, on every blog that they happen to get on, and sees you engaging with a lot of people they know, then this is an indicator that they may need to follow and get to know you.

Generate Email Subscribers By Focusing On These 5 Elements

Ok You’re already getting traffic right? And it’s not just any type of traffic, it’s targeted traffic. There are a few things you want to incorporate within your blog to make it easier for your targeted traffic to opt into your email list.

And one of the many things you’re going to find tedious when it comes to getting traffic are the many changes you’ll be making. I for one am already testing, making errors, and making improvements to see what would be the most beneficial. So here’s 5 things you want to pay attention to so you can generate email subscribers.

Opt In Form

When it comes to Opt In Forms you want to first set one up and also you want the most enticing, easy-to-find ones if you want to generate email subscribers.

If you were like me in my novice blogging days, I expected for visitors to purchase whatever I promote through my affiliate links, although I was told many times that the money is in the list.

Did it work out?

In some occasions it did, but 99% of the time it didn’t. Many of you can relate to this. You may get a minimum amount of sales from your visitors, but most of the time it’s far from reaching the threshold you set up for you to get paid.

So yes, you may be generating targeted traffic, but it’s even better for you to generate email subscribers.

Why?

So you can give them the opportunity to show how competent you are!

The main objective of your goals is to build a great reputation among your target audience and what better way besides blogging than for them to become a subscriber and receive emails from you.

When your visitors really find your content interesting and engaging, a lot of them will want to go to the next step to become your subscribers.

There are a lot of list building plugins you can install. Many start with the free ones such as Sumome and Magic Action Box. But when it comes to these free packages you will be limited to few features and if you upgrade, some have an expensive monthly charge or a one time payment still with limited features compared to other link building plugins.

Although I use the free versions of Sumome and Magic Action Box, my main plugin for list building is Thrive Leads. Here’s a Review I did on Thrive Leads where I share it’s benefits and some of the unique options and features it contains to help you with your conversions. [ Tweet this! ]

Copywriting

If you really want to engage your audience and get them to do some specific action, then copywriting is the way to go.

You want to be to conjure up your visitors emotions so that they can anticipate the instructions of what to do next. They’ve always wanted someone to lead them to glory although, ironically, they don’t like to be sold to and told what to do.

But we all want to be lead in some way, form or fashion. If someone is going to take us out of the situation that we don’t want to be in, then we’re all up for it!

That’s why copywriting is a vital skill to learn when it comes to blogging so that eventually you can generate email subscribers.

One thing that was advised to me is to study ads!

What words are these ads using and what emotions do they conjure up?

How can you implement these ads within your Opt In Forms, Blog Posts and the Calls To Actions within each of your posts?

Comments

It’s really informative article Sherman.
Even I have this problem.. I try to produce good contents and do some better off page SEO. But couldn’t get reasonable subscribers..
But your points and tips are very useful and hopefully I will see some changes in terms of subscription after implement your tips.

A lot of us have this problems in generating subscribers. Even if we are producing great content for our targeted audience. But one thing I notice for myself is that sometimes I overlook and don’t apply the simple actions that need to be done in order to attract more subscribers.

These are the very elements required to increase the subscribers to your blog. I think foremost, if you are writing content that helps people, they are bound to subscribe – no matter what. I can say that because of the people who subscribe to my blog, which doesn’t have anything to offer as yet. They come in daily in small numbers, but I know they are going to stay for sure, because they’ve subscribed as they like what’s shared.

We still have to work on the apt opt-ins etc, but are gradually making some changes to the blog, which would be visible soon. Thanks for sharing these with us. Have a nice week ahead 🙂Harleena Singh recently posted…Why You Matter Even If You Think You Don’t

There are many who overlook some of these elements. In the past I was guilty as charged! But you’re right, if we write content thats meant to help your audience, then you stand a better chance of generating email subscribers.

But you’re doing better than most people when it comes to generating email. The reason being is because your content is very genuine and valuable to the audience that you draw in. I’m one of them 😉

Everything that is real is subject to change and your content is as real as it gets. Putting those nice touches will definitely make your content more attract which means more subscribers for you!

This is a great idea. I have the same idea but for home business. I started creating another PDF, and on top of that, I talked with a coworker of mine who’s trying to do everything under the sun LOL… but I like his enthusiasm for going after what he really wants. But he doesn’t have a good idea of how to get going.

I’m sure there’s a lot of people like this, and I was one of them.

I like your list for the hiring process of a web designer.

I’m sure that a lot of companies will appreciate this. I know their IT team will LOL (Speaking from experience)

What a wonderful article! I do get a good amount of traffic and have recently started to apply a CTA. But what I notice is that I think I need to be more aggressive with it when it comes to opting into a list. I do have my own products on my sidebar and also embed a CTA within my posts.

People drip in each week and I’m fine with that. But this is where I really need to improve my strength. I do have a few email lists and juggle information for each one of them so they are congruent.

I just started another blog where it will be only featuring guests and their products and sometimes influencers in the market. I just wrote about it and it’s in the making.

I do feel that there, I can be more aggressive with sales. Gotta keep on trying lol.

I just read your blog post about the featuring guests and their products. And let me tell you that I opted in 😉 So now you have another subscriber!

But I know wha you mean. I’m always making changes myself. I could be a bit more aggressive with writing more valuable ebooks which gives my audience a reason to opt in.

I see that you embed a CTA within each of your posts. I actually like this idea and I’m going to do this myself as well on certain posts. But yes, we gotta keep the pursuit going if we want to keep progress. Trial and Error can be tedious and frustrating, but as long as we learn from them and implement, then it all will be grave 😉

The CTA that I’ve been embedding on each post has been having a good response. It is there…but up to the person to click it or not. I did find that there were people that have never commented on my blog, but read it and opted into the offer.

We do have to consider the many people who might just come over to our blog, and never comment. There is a way to track that, but I haven’t done it lol.

By all means…write ebooks and give a good CTA…eventualy things will happen.

You and me both! I need to figure out how to track those people that opt in and don’t comment as well.

Does the CTA you have embedded in each post get best response?

I will definitely keep writing ebooks and craft better CTAs. You know Donna, this suspense may kill people but on the contrary this is actually fun LOLSherman Smith recently posted…7 Ways You Can Benefit From Your Competition

Loved the post! And I know that this is an area where I’m lacking at the moment.

You can have the best content in the world, but if visitors know they can simply get this info from feedly or your Facebook page or something of the like, they see little reason in subscribing to your actual email list.

Funny that I know how important this is and yet, I’m not putting in the effort that I should. Aw well, as with anything in life, back to the drawing board. Even an expert can get better 😉

Thats the draw back about generating email subscribers. They can get a lot of the same information through your Facebook page or some other source. But one thing I learned is it’s all about the sizzle and not the steak!

Give your readers enough value for them to want to opt in. I still need to make some changes myself in regards to this concept, so yes, even the best of us can get better 😉 and your quote summarizes it!

When I first started blogging a CTA seemed kind of crazy to be because I figured people would know what to do next but it works. People really respond to it.

I agree power words are really good at getting readers’ attention and getting them to connect. When you can use the right words to descibe how they’re feeling or what they want you’ve got them on the hook. Then a good CTA will have them on your list.

I thought the same thing bout CTAs when I first started. I thought it would be common sense for people to take action if they really want it. But yes, adding them helps quite a bit.

Power Words does not only draw attention but also triggers something in their brain to take action. When you add them to your CTAs, Headlines, etc. then you definitely will start get some responses from your audiences.

Great quotes here, Sherman. You also include 5 great action points that keep people from growing the subscriber numbers that they could, if only they knew in advance what they were growing a list for, why and how much their subscribers would get out of being subscribers.

You highlight the point that it’s often a mismatch between what a blogger thinks potential audiences want and what they actually want, that stops bloggers growing a list.

“Are You Seen Everywhere Engaging Others” – Yes! This is a brilliant twist on the mantra “Be Everywhere”. Your twist turns this around to make it audience-focussed.

Another point I’d add is to “listen” to your potential audience and take
what they’re saying they want and the questions they’re asking in Comments Sections to focus your content on. This is also a great way of coming up with an incentive to persuading people to sign up to your list.

It’s also interesting to see that some of the most successful list builders don’t actually have a “give-away” or incentive. They attract subscribers with great content and by that all important “listening” to their potential and target audience.

Without this knack of “listening” all other tactics and strategies don’t
work nearly as well as they could because they compliments not persuaders.

I learned about being seen everywhere from the time I was in Network Marketing. I forgot the leaders name, but he made it a point to be everywhere and this is what he taught. But if you’re seen engaging people everywhere, then your audience as well as other bloggers within your niche will see that there’s some positive about you and maybe it would be a good idea to connect with you.

Yes, Listening is vital, and I’m glad you brought this to our attention. When it comes to your comments, you want to really get a feel about what your commenters are saying so that you can see how you can solve their problems, or even be of more value to them.

If they can see and feel this, this would be a great incentive for them to subscribe to your list.

I have notice that a lot of the more successful list builders really don’t have a “give-away” incentive like an ebook or video series. They just have a great name for themselves and great content. I do have to say that “listening” is the key action they do to keep their traffic coming back as well as getting new visitors.

The best way to collect a correct email list is through collecting emails on offline events like trade shows and import them into your database. You can never go wrong with this line of attack. It is a surefire tip I can share.

All in all, these are indeed 5 driven elements to focus on to generating email subscribers.

Sometimes getting subscribers feels like the Holy Grail – is it a myth or does it really exist?

I can agree with all your action points, they are all good valid points that we should be working on. I believe it takes time and practice to hone your message to your audience, and folks don’t give up their email address so quickly nowadays.

I think once you have proven yourself to be helping solve their problems, and they like and trust you, then you will have a better chance of them subscribing.

I know what you mean LOL.. it does feel like the Holy Grail when we get subscribers. Just this week I only had 3 subscribers. It’s lower compared to what I use to get, but I feel that these subscribers are really targeted.

But that’s key isn’t it? We want to really targeted subscribers because they’re the ones that’s going to matter in the long run. Especially if they’re serious (which most likely they are) and you’re helping to solve the problems as well as building a good relationship with them. That’s what matter and this should definitely be our focus!

I’ve the victim of my own lack of focus in the past – too many projects and ideas, not enough hours in the day to do them all justice. So I’ve started this year determined to concentrate on a limited number.

One goal is to grow my email subscriptions on a blog of mine. That means I’ll be addressing a few of these which I’ve neglected in the past. Thanks for sharing!

When I started blogging I signed into a lots of lists. I always thought they will help somehow and I read many free Ebooks that were very disappointing. Over time I signed out of most lists again and stayed only with ones that I really enjoyed. Now it takes me a much longer time and many visits to a websites before I sign up.

Thanks again for great tips and for pointing out that good quality is what makes people stick around 🙂

I’ve done the same thing! I’ve signed into a lot of lists, downloaded their ebooks, read them, and yes, a lot of them were disappointing. They didn’t cover what I really wanted to know. Now I tend to be more careful. If they aren’t recommended by someone I respect I won’t sign up. For others, It’ll take me quite a few posts before I decide where I’ll opt in or not.

Call to actions are so important, especially on your best pieces of content I think. I have to be honest though although I have my opt-in forms in place for getting new subscribers and everything else, and that’s working a real treat for me, one thing I do lack of sometimes is ensuring that I add a call to action at the bottom of my posts, to say to people, if they enjoyed reading my post, why not subscribe to my updates. Because sometimes I automatically assume people will sign up if they enjoyed reading a post.

I also think though that someone can go overboard with things, I don’t believe in aggressive marketing tactics at all, and one of the things I did a few weeks back was to remove the ribbon call to action above my site, even though it was the number 1 opt-in converter for me.

My opt-ins haven’t dropped at all, as at the same time I introduced a pop-up form for the first time in the five years that I have blogged.

One thing that really works is eBooks incentives, people always want free content that’s going to be of use to them and help them find solutions to their problems, if someone can create an offer too good to miss, and combine this with powerful call to actions and well placed opt-in forms, then they’re onto a winner in my book.

I learned some years ago that all money isn’t good money. In regards to aggressively marketing, sometimes having a bunch of opt in forms in your posts isn’t great. In your case it didn’t make a difference after you got rid of your ribbon call to action. although it was the number one converter for you, you still didn’t skip a beat with opt ins.

Yes ebook incentives definitely work. I’m actually working on another one. It does take me a long time since I don’t have a lot of time, but it’s well worth squeezing the time to create more, giving my audience more value on top of the value given on my blog.

The one thing I always do is have a call to action at the end of my post whether it be for my audience to opt in or to share some of their comments. I’m either learning from my audience or pointing them in a direction that’s most helpful to them. In the end, it’s all about engagement, building rapport, trust and a great reputation.

The questions you just mentioned will help you stay focused on the topic, tie it into the purpose of the post, and keep you targeting the very person who will find your content valuable.

And when you can answer these three questions, that blank space won’t leave people blank in the face. They’re going to actually get something out of it. They’ll be able to use the content you’ve written and also give them a reason to share it!

When it comes to generating email, in order to get the best results, you definitely want to address the problems of your targeted readers and convey the options that they have to resolve the issues that they’re having.

With that being said, your reputation grows, it becomes more positive, you attract more visitors, and eventually you have a better chance for these targeted visitors to subscribe to your blog.

But why not give your targeted visitors a little push by honing your skills in copywriting. By adding to each element to generating subscriptions it’ll make the process more convenient and go smoother!

What a highly informative post, that’s jammed packed with tons
of extremely practical strategies and tactics to test.

And this was such fun and easy flowing read as well. BTW, you could have easily, or if you decide to in the future, convert this post into
a really cool five to seven part opt in video presentation mini series/boot camp!

It’s that good and maybe use Power Point slides and narrate each point or just use the tried and true blackboard and each video cover one of your main points.

And then maybe offer some personalized one on one coaching/consulting, for anyone that needs that personalized affect.

And just offer your bran new firs time VIP customers, some type of incentive discounted price etc.

There you go with your great ideas LOL.. I’m loving it! I do want to use different type of content and create more list specific towards each topic I write. I believe it’s called Content Upgrades.

I may even start doing something similar to your suggestion in the summer time and hopefully it’ll be ready by the coming new year (Yes it’s a slow process being a solopreneur)

I want to revamp some content and maybe do a slideshare for the most popular ones and also info graphs…This will give me a break from coming up with brand new content. Are you doing something similar? If so, how is it working out for you?

They really mean a lot and are so greatly appreciated, especially coming from a respected expert such as yourself!

It’s utterly amazing to me, that every time I read one of your excellent blog posts, I can’t help but feel like I just studied an intense mini boot camp of some kind!LOL!

So that’s why I mentioned the part about (maybe) inexpensively testing adding on some personalized, more advanced one on one coaching/consulting sessions on the back end as a potential income generator.

Because your information is so highly concentrated, that I’m positive, you generate (at least) as many additional questions, as your content answers!LOL!

And that would give you an additional chance to be of even more service to your customer/client base, in an extremely practical way and generate some income and power testimonials too!LOL!

But to answer your question directly, yes I am personally using the overall basic marketing strategy that I’m advocating for here, however, I’m just going about it slightly different is all!LOL!

Great job as always! This was a rally fun and highly informative read!

So good in fact, it inspired me to create some content around it and I even used you as the hypothetical case study in the post linked to this particular comment!

This was a very detailed post from which many of us can derive real benefits. Although you have given many tips and suggestions, one has to remember the human element which does not always respond to stimuli. We can go ahead and do everything you have suggested but it can be a hit and miss just the same, there are no guarantees. If we therefore approach the business with this mindset and attitude then we can reduce the frustration than can arise especially with affiliate marketing. Nevertheless, it was a good post.

I agree with you. It’s not always a 100% that you will generate subscribers, but there’s always a more beneficial approach and always a not so beneficial way. And when it comes to getting the best out of these elements, you want to make sure that they’re in line with the mindset of those who we call our target audience. When you build this bridge, you’ll definitely have a better chance people wanting to know more about you and what you offer.

You are SO right my friend and as you probably know I’ve been a little lax lately myself. Just trying to make some decisions about where I’m headed moving forward so I haven’t really been working as hard to get more readers or subscribers. Fortunately for me though, I still get both every single day with not a lot of effort now. I’m not turning them into paying customers yet but the building the relationship part, well you know that’s a given if you’re opting into my list. 😉

Seriously though, you’re right. In order to continue building your business you want those people who are serious to be on your list. Those are the ones that will end up buying from you and we just have to keep finding more clever ways to go about this.

I’m working on getting much more clear and focused right now but I have so much going on in the back of my head right now thinking of ways to achieve what you’re sharing here.

The frustration, trial and tribulation of building an email list gets the best out of most of us. But it is definitely possible to do so. I know you’re doing well with this part as well as building great relationships with your list.

We definitely want to make sure we get those serious people. As a matter of fact, I’ve read that many build an email list specifically for them. These are definitely the ones that buy and we all must figure out ways to attract more of these people.

I know that you have a lot going on in the back of your head. There are so many ways, so many approaches to go about it, and this is probably one of the exciting parts of growing a business!

You’ve asked some really good questions and made some excellent points here, thanks so much for sharing. My percentage of returning visitors is 42%. This is really encouraging me because I have a lot of new people too, just about balanced out. 🙂

Social proof has become much more important these days and while I do place importance on social media connections, My ultimate goal is to get people on my site and have them sharing my content out. So the social proof by way of share buttons and statistics is pretty good, but we all could use improvement in this area, right?

That’s great that you returning visitors are 42% out of total visitors. This shows that you are definitely doing something right. I glad to say that I’m part of the 42%.

We all want to be in the “In Crowd” and this is why social proof is so important. You definitely want to make those connections and be visible on those sites and blogs wherever your target audience is. And yes we all can use some improvement in this area! There’s always room for it.

In my opinion CTA is the most powerful element that you can have to generate more email subscribers. Most bloggers make the mistake of not testing the optins. Some of the best optins that work are popup and flyins.

Exit intent is also another important feature that you can use to catch the reader’s audience.

When your copy draws emotion, then your CTA will definitely work to it’s fullest. Especially if you want to generate more email subscribers.

But one thing is for sure, you want to test your CTAs. I wasn’t doing this at first and I lost out on a lot of opt ins, but now, I’m testing every week to see which CTA works the best and in the process I’m getting opt ins!

This is great advice. I think one of the biggest things you need to have on your website and create for your readers is value. Like you said, people are coming to your site to see if you have anything that is relevant to them and can help them to solve problems that they have. You have to have something that free and valuable to your readers in order for them to want to sign up to your website. And you also have to email them exactly what you said you are on your opt in form and not something different. You are right that is how you get people irritated and make them want to unsubscribe. Also giving people and incentive to opt in like a free ebook or video course is a great way to get people to sign up!Lawrence Berry recently posted…7 Things That Will Help You to Mentally Toughen Up

Value is key, but what determines that value will depend on your audience. But either case, as an entrepreneur you want to hone your skills in troubleshooting any type of problems your target audience has.

And what better way to get their attention and get the to sign up to your subscriber list than to give them something for free that they can instantly use.

On top of that, you want to email them exactly what they opt in for. If they opt in for SEO, you don’t want to keep sending them information on generating traffic from Social Media. This will give them a reason to opt out.

I actually plan on getting back to using paid methods to generate subscribers. When I was doing it before, I was pretty successful at it. The only problem was that I wasn’t getting the sales I want (2 to 3 sales a month)… so I switched over to just focusing on blogging.

But as you said, being visible is vital if you want to attract great results and that stems from people just getting to know who you are and what you can do for them.